Going into month eight now, of this living with and allowing creativity. It sounds so lofty. “Yes, dahhling, I am infused with the spirit of creativity!” Bah. I’ve never liked the “artistes,” the artier than thou types. Never silly, often condescending, and fostering the impression that creativity is for the elite.
You know what though? It ain’t! Yes, AIN’T, not isn’t. Ain’t. Ain’t. Ain’t. It belongs to everyone. Like the air and sunlight. You just gotta throw open the curtains and the window, stick your head out, and make like the seagulls in Finding Nemo: MIME!MINE!MINE!
Don’t wait for the “perfect” moment to allow creativity in. It will never come. You’ll find the perfect moments when you’re in the middle of your project and realize you were able to get completely sucked into the present – no past to drag you down, no future to cause worry. Work hard to get there- I’ve been, and decided I’d like it to be a more regular state of being. It’s great to not have so much worry that my stomach hurts or I can’t sleep. I’m grateful that I’m not only (finally) learning how to live life one step at a time, but I am doing so while enjoying the view.
Ah. Rain. We finally have rain! Temps are in the 70’s and all last night, the rain fell.
I overslept and was late for work.
The week before, we had a heat wave. A real one where it went above 100 and it was still 90 degrees indoors at midnight. At least it was a dry heat, though, so I wasn’t sticky. I was, however, cranky. Cranky McCrankypants of the Kingdom Crankmeister. When it’s that hot, I have absolutely no motivation to make anything at home. I thought about papier mache since it would dry so quickly, but I just couldn’t bear to be at home and so I hung out at work well after my shift was over and worked on a scarf for my little nephew or hung out with friends who had air conditioning. My tomato and gourd plants loved the heat, though, and now my garden looks like a little jungle.
So, anyway, in the last 4-6 weeks, I’ve been chugging along on the crafting train. To start, I tackled these big, hairy beasts.
Got both wool sweaters for about $6. The colors didn’t photograph well on the Bill Cosby sweater pre-skeining, but take a look at the after picture below.
This was my first experience with recycling sweaters and considering how much yarn I got for so cheap, I think I’m going to do this again in the future. The skeins were washed and hung up to dry. The last part of the drying was done in the sun so the wool has the wooly/laundry dried on the line smell and the fibers went from looking like Top Ramen to fluffy and straight. Squishy.
For those of you who are thinking of giving this a try, here’s some advice:
- Work on an old bed sheet to catch all the fiber bits that will fall out.
- don’t work in the wind unless it’s blowing away from you or you will be covered in a million tiny hairs that will. drive. you. insane.
- the end caps of the PVC niddy noddy are important. I didn’t get them at first because I thought it was just cosmetic. It isn’t. By the time I wound up all the yarn, my knuckles and the backs of my hands were covered with cuts from the edge of the PVC pipes. Was I in a bar brawl? No- I was recycling yarn.
- If you don’t get the ends caps, you may want to sand the edges unless you’re
going for the bas-ass knitter look.
Oh- and go here for good instructions on making a PVC niddy noddy. It cost less to make this wonderful tool than a large cup of coffee.
Next for show and tell is:
A dog bed made out of recycled wool sweaters!
This is for a sweet little dog of some friends. I made a prototype bed for a friend’s cat a few months ago and she took to it immediately. I figured she would since she seems to be infatuated with my wool yarn and wool socks.
All I did was get some wool, non-superwash sweaters at the thrift store, bagged them up using old pillowcases and hair ties, and washed and dried them. The body of the sweaters makes the base and the arms are reinforced with ribbing and sleeves from other sweaters to make the walls. The whole thing is sewn together with wool yarn and then washed again. The stitches then shrink down a bit and the seams tighten up. The decorative button was a donation from a co-worker who recycled it off a coat. I think it completes the bed nicely.
The beds are easy to make – no pattern other than the large mixing bowl I used to cut out a huge circle. If you want to make one, here are my tips:
- for a cat/small dog bed, I used 2 XL wool sweaters
- I used 4 layers for the base for cushioning and insulation
- remember: the inner layers can’t be seen, so don’t worry about what color the fabric is
- periodically stitch the layers together, throughout the be, just like you would do for a quilt
- when you take the bed out of the wash, it will look like a giant, soggy tortilla- DON’T PANIC! reshape it and throw it in a hot dryer.
- I’ve only used wool yarn to stitch the bed, but I’m sure upholstery thread will work fine, too.
- time it took to make one: almost 2 viewings of Men in Black
Finally, here a photo of the result of my first foray back into the world of embroidering that I blogged about last month:
This was a fairly quick and extremely fun project! I will definitely be making more of these.
Whew…big fat blog and now it’s time for bed. Sweet dreams everyone!
